Gutowski, E. & Goodman, L. A. (2020). “Like I’m invisible”: IPV survivor-mothers’ perceptions of seeking child custody through the family court system. Journal of Family Violence, 35, 441-457. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-018-00063-1
Abstract This qualitative descriptive study examines the perspectives of 19 mothers who survived intimate partner violence (IPV) and sought custody of one or more children through the family court system. We explored these mothers’ perceptions of the nature of court processes from start to finish, their understandings of the impact of court processes and outcomes on their well-being, and their recommendations for improvements to facilitate a process that is sensitive to survivors’ experiences with IPV. Mothers interviewed in this study described an experience that was largely invalidating and distressing, compounding the adverse effects of IPV on their well-being. Qualitative content analysis yielded six clusters: 1) survivors must enter into a court environment that implicitly presumes the absence of trauma, 2) survivors face obstacles to getting their stories of abuse across and heard, 3) survivors experience harmful and helpful interactions with court professionals, 4) survivors endure distress in the courtroom, 5) survivors suffer psychosocial consequences outside of the courtroom, and 6) survivors make recommendations for an improved custody process that is sensitive to experiences of IPV. Results paint a picture of a family court system that has the potential to cause grave, lasting harms to survivor-mothers who are separating from abusive partners. Obtain a full copy of the article here: (PDF) “Like I’m Invisible”: IPV Survivor-Mothers’ Perceptions of Seeking Child Custody through the Family Court System (researchgate.net)
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Miller, S. L., & Manzer, J. L. (2021). Safeguarding children’s well-being: Voices from abused mothers navigating their relationships and the civil courts. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(9-10), 4545-4569. DOI: 10.1177/10886260518791599
Abstract Battered mothers often go to great lengths to protect their children from abuse. Most of these efforts play out in private settings such as the home. After their relationships end, women’s actions shift to the public sphere for judgment by the courts. Abusers’ strategies utilize the courts as another tool with which to call into question and challenge their former partners’ parenting. Images of “good mothers” who behave passively are favored by officials who often have incomplete understandings of the dynamics of intimate partner violence and abuse. Existing studies about justice-involved mothers insufficiently portray women’s experiences managing both continued abuse from past partners as well as discriminating treatment by the courts. Semistructured interviews with 25 women in the United States who have terminated their abusive relationships reveal strategies of negotiation and resistance used to protect their children both during and after their relationships; the women also recount instances of paternalism and naïveté present in civil and criminal courts. While their male abusers seemed to receive leniency from court officials, despite, in some cases, violating judges’ direct orders, the women’s efforts were sometimes interpreted as recalcitrance and disobedience when they challenged unfair labels, visitation, and custody decisions. This qualitative study contextualizes women’s efforts and actions taken to safeguard their children during and after their relationships to highlight women’s experiences the courts overlook and misconstrue as well as what happens when women engage with the courts. Policy suggestions include ways to prevent the continued victimization of battered women by the courts, to challenge the pejorative assessment of mother’s protective behaviors, and to illuminate court officials’ malfeasance and toleration of fathers’ tactics. Request a full-copy of the article here: Safeguarding Children’s Well-Being: Voices From Abused Mothers Navigating Their Relationships and the Civil Courts (researchgate.net) Birnbaum, R., & Saini, M. (2015). A qualitative synthesis of children's experiences of shared care post divorce. The International Journal of Children's Rights, 23(1), 109-132. DOI: 10.1163/15718182-02301005
Abstract Objectives: Children’s views and experiences of shared care arrangements post separation were explored to provide their voices to the ongoing discussions of shared parenting. Methods: Qualitative synthesis included a systematic and transparent method for retrieval, screening, and analysing qualitative studies. The inclusion criteria accepted studies that were: qualitative in design; included children as participants in shared care parenting time post-separation. Results: Ten qualitative studies in six different countries with 466 children and young adults were included in the final analysis. Children’s experiences of shared care parenting post separation were mixed and varied depending on contextual factors related to their relationship with both parents, as well the quality of these relationships and the flexibility/rigidity of the parenting arrangement. Implications: Hearing from children and young adults directly helps to move the shared care debate away from binary arguments about sole versus shared care based on parents’ rights and advocacy views. Read the full article here: (PDF) A Qualitative Synthesis of Children’s Experiences of Shared Care Post Divorce (researchgate.net) Cross, P. (2013). When Shared Parenting and the Safety of Women and Children Collide. Luke’s Place Support and Resource Centre
Introduction This paper explores this topic from an experience-based perspective: my work as a family law lawyer representing women who had experienced abuse and my work at the systemic level as a community researcher, educator and advocate, working with frontline workers who support women involved with family court after leaving abusive relationships. It reflects the stories and lived experiences of hundreds of women that I have encountered either directly or through their legal support workers. Read the full report here: Microsoft Word - FINAL - Shared Parenting - September 2016.docx (lukesplace.ca) Drozd, L. M., Deustch, R. M., Robin, M., & Donner, D. A. (2020). Parenting coordination in cases involving intimate partner violence. Family Court Review, 58(3), 774-792. DOI: 10.1111/fcre.12512
Abstract Parenting Coordination is a “hybrid legal‐mental health role that combines assessment, education, case management, conflict management, dispute resolution and, often times, decision‐making functions (AFCC, 2019, https://www.afccnet.org/Portals/0/PublicDocuments/Guidelines%20for%20PC%20with%20Appendex.pdf?ver=2020-01-30-190220-990). This article addresses issues that arise when the case has allegations or findings of intimate partner violence (IPV). Considerations of the type of IPV, the severity, timing, perpetrator and effects on coparenting are discussed in the context of the parenting coordinator's role. Through screening and assessment, we differentiate the kinds of cases with the presence of IPV where a PC may be effective as opposed to other IPV cases that may not predict success for retaining a PC. Request a full-text copy of the article here: Parenting Coordination In Cases Involving Intimate Partner Violence (researchgate.net) Koshan, J., Mosher, J., & Wiegers, W. (2020). COVID-19, the shadow pandemic, and access to justice for survivors of domestic violence. Osgood Hall Law Journal, Osgood Legal Studies Research Paper.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has co-existed alongside a far less visible “shadow pandemic” of violence against women, with COVID-19 impacting the number and complexity of domestic violence cases and enabling new tactics for coercive control. This article provides a preliminary assessment of the extent to which Canada’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have prioritized the safety of women and children, with a focus on the courts and women’s access to justice. We examine court directives and judicial decisions triaging which cases would be heard as “urgent,” as well as courts’ decisions on the merits in cases involving domestic violence and COVID-19, spanning the areas of family, child welfare, criminal law, and civil protection orders. In the sixty-seven reported decisions in our sample, we find very little awareness overall of the heightened risks for survivors during COVID-19, in keeping with the pre-pandemic tendency of decision makers to focus on incident-based physical violence instead of patterns of coercive control. Our analysis also suggests that survivors’ ability to prove domestic violence and secure court orders that would help to ensure their safety was hampered not only by procedural complexity but also by the reduced availability of a range of services—health, counselling, housing, and supervised access centres, for example— as a result of COVID-19. The cases further reveal significant differences in judicial interpretation of the risks of COVID-19 relative to the risks of domestic violence, often depending on the area of law in question. This again aligns with observations of the judicial treatment of domestic violence prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with different and sometimes conflicting norms and assumptions prevailing in different legal contexts. We conclude that despite some positive government responses and judicial decisions, COVID-19 has further exposed many of the gaps in knowledge about domestic violence and in the supports and resources necessary to make women and children safe that long pre-dated COVID19. In addressing the ongoing pandemic of violence against women, we offer some suggestions of measures to improve access to justice during this and future disasters. Obtain the full report here: COVID-19, the Shadow Pandemic, and Access to Justice for Survivors of Domestic Violence by Jennifer Koshan, Janet Eaton Mosher, Wanda Anne Wiegers :: SSRN Jaffe, P. (2014). A presumption against shared parenting for family court litigants. Family Court Review, 52(2), 187-192. Abstract Shared parenting is the most beneficial model for planning the future of many separating parents and their children. Shared parenting needs to be crafted, for appropriate cases, by willing parents on their own or through coaching by responsible lawyers, counsellors, or mediators. Shared parenting is not an outcome that should be forced on high‐conflict parents against their will as a compromise in the hopes that they will grow into the plan. Separating parents with a history of domestic violence need to receive appropriate screening and assessment on the nature of the violence, the impact of the violence on the adult victim and children, and the interventions required by the perpetrator before a safe parenting plan can be designed. The Think Tank Report on shared parenting is to be commended for its work. The Report acknowledges some of the limitations of shared parenting in situations that pose risks to children and/or inadvertently promote ongoing conflicts between parents. My concern is that domestic violence victims will be forced into shared parenting or fear being labelled as “hostile” and “unfriendly parents” or accused of alienation. There continues to be a need for much more professional education on the ongoing risks of domestic violence and the implications for differentiated parenting plans. Request a copy of the article here: A Presumption Against Shared Parenting for Family Court Litigants (researchgate.net) Campo, M., Fehlberg, B., Natalier, K., & Smyth, B. (2020). Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. DOI: 10.1080/09649069.2020.1796218
ABSTRACT This paper explores 68 Australian children and young people’s understandings of what ‘home’ means for them after their parents’ separation. Home – a familiar yet complex concept of great personal and social significance – has been a research focus for many other disciplines but not family law. We found that home, as an idea and lived experience, was complex. Children and young people’s descriptions of home conveyed an interaction of tangible and intangible dimensions. Home was rarely defined by children and young people solely in terms of a physical residence; rather it was a fundamentally relational idea and experience, largely created through everyday interactions with significant others. Our study suggests that home is not simply the outcome of conforming to a defined list of ‘good’ post-separation parenting practices, or dependent on the amount of time spent at each parent’s residence: it has an existential significance for children and young people that matters deeply to them. Request a copy here: THE MEANING OF 'HOME' TO CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE AFTER PARENTAL SEPARATION | Bruce M Smyth | 7 updates | 1 publications | Research Project (researchgate.net) Sheehy, E., & Boyd, S. B. (2020). Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 42(1), 80-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2020.1701940 Abstract
This paper explores Canadian family law cases involving claims of parental alienation and of family violence from 2014–2018, reporting the data on these claims, their resolution, and their impacts upon custody and access. A close reading of those cases where both alienation and intimate partner violence claims are made reveals troubling patterns in how intimate partner violence is discounted in this context. We suggest that the rise of shared parenting as a dominant norm assists in understanding why alienation has achieved such unquestioned status, and call for greater focus on safety and women’s and children’s voices. Request a full-copy here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339328203_Penalizing_women%27s_fear_intimate_partner_violence_and_parental_alienation_in_Canadian_child_custody_cases Gender politics and child custody: The puzzling persistence of the best-interests standard9/21/2020 E. S. Scott & R. E. Emery (2014). Gender politics and child custody: The puzzling persistence of the best-interests standards. Law and Contemporary Problems, 77(1), 69-108.
"There appear to be two different perspectives on the presumption of shared time parenting, one expressing concern about domestic violence or safety and responsibility, and the other concern about parental alienation from children, or the rights of parents; both are perceived to be problematic to policy reform toward shared parenting (Scott & Emery, 2014).” Read the full article here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288688063_Gender_Politics_and_Child_Custody_The_Puzzling_Persistence_of_the_Best-Interests_Standard |
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